Globally-recognised hospitality management programmes from Cross Border Academy

Cross Border Academy (CBA) is one of the primary hospitality education providers in Sri Lanka, with a highly-reputed team of lecturers who possess decades of hands-on experience in the hotel and tourism industry.

The academy is partnered with Dimensions Education Group of Singapore, which was established in 1980 and Wissen Academy of Singapore, the subsidiary of Wissen International Singapore.

CBA is located at No. 525, Union Place, Colombo 2 (opposite the National Eye Hospital) in an extremely specious and high quality learning environment. The facilities provided to the students are approved by partners in Singapore and the teaching framework, guidelines, materials and other related information is provided by Wissen Academy.

The quality controlling of the academy is entirely monitored by Wissen Academy of Singapore, which includes the learning environment, teaching materials, accreditations and certifications. Furthermore, Wissen Academy heads the CBA Academic Council. The primary programme offered by CBA is the Diploma in Hospitality Management, which is undertaken over a period of 4 months on a full time basis. This includes 32 hours of guided teaching per week amounting to 512 during the entire programme. Furthermore, each guided hour of teaching is supported via two hours of self study. Therefore, a student will be undergoing close to 1500 hours of learning during the period of four months. In addition, the core modules for the Diploma in Hospitality Management include Front Office Operations, Restaurant Services and Operations, Customer Care, Fundamentals of Accounting in Hospitality Management, Fundamentals of Cookery, Event and Meeting Management, Housekeeping and Food Safety Management.

On completion of the programme CBA will guide and assist qualified students to enter into the best hotels in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, students can transfer across to Singapore for further education in Hospitality Management with Dimensions International College, which has a student base of over 4,000. CBA will undertake the entire process of formalising the necessary documentation for education at Dimensions.

CBA will be celebrating its second year anniversary this month. To date, the academy has been successful in qualifying over 200 students. CBA Founder/Managing Director Yatila Wijemanne stated: “Our strong industry connections have enabled us to place all out graduates in star class hotels in the entire country, especially in Colombo.” Recently, CBA launched the Certification in Food and Beverage Operations, also in partnership with Wissen Academy of Singapore.

Wijemanne further highlighted the potential in the tourism and hospitality industry for young individuals and the importance of females joining the industry. This he noted was very low in comparison to the number of males joining the industry. “Only 10% a batch comprises of females, this number is very low as many opportunities are available within the industry to be filled by females. As a result, the potential is very high for employability.” The next intake of CBA will be in August and October 2011.